Shepherdswell (also Sibertswold) is a village in the civil parish of

Shepherdswell with Coldred Shepherdswell with Coldred is a civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, England. The parish contains the villages of Shepherdswell and Coldred, apart, and the hamlet of Coxhill just south-west of Shepherdswell. Shepherdswell with Coldred is ...

, and the

Dover District Dover is a local government district in Kent, England. The port town of Dover is its administrative centre. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the boroughs of Deal, Dover, and Sandwich along with Dover Rural District and most of Eastry ...

of Kent, England.

Culture and community

Village social life centres on the local

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

church 'Church of St Andrew', and the village hall which is hosts events including charity jumble sales and a

pre-school playgroup A pre-school playgroup, or in everyday usage just a playgroup, is an organised group providing care and socialisation for children under five. The term is widely used in the United Kingdom. Playgroups are less formal than the preschool education o ...

. The village pub is the

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Bell by the village green, near to the church. Additionally the village has a Co-op mini-supermarket. Shepherdswell is significant for the

East Kent Railway The East Kent Railway (EKR) was an early railway operating between Strood and Faversham in Kent, England, during 1858 and 1859. In the latter year it changed its name to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to reflect its ambitions to build a ...

, whose terminus is sited there. This was originally one of Colonel Stephens's lines and ran to Wingham. The section as far as Eythorne is now run by a preservation society. It has a mainline railway station named Shepherds Well with direct trains to Dover and London via Faversham. The village is on the

Miner's Way Trail The Miner's Way Trail is a long-distance circular footpath in England, starting at Sholden, Kent. Linking up the coalfield parishes of East Kent. Including; the parishes of Deal, Ash, Aylesham, Chillenden, Eastry, Eythorne, Elvington, Goodnes ...

. The trail links the coalfield parishes of East Kent. In the village it links with the

North Downs Way The North Downs Way National Trail is a long-distance path in southern England, opened in 1978. It runs from Farnham to Dover, past Guildford, Dorking, Merstham, Otford and Rochester, along the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty ...

, which also passes through the village between Whitfield and

Woolage Village Woolage Village is a former mining village situated midway between Canterbury and Dover in the English county of Kent. It is 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of the A2 road. Together with Womenswold and Woolage Green, it forms Womenswold par ...

Sport

Shepherdswell is also home the "Shepherdswell Spartans Football Club". Football has been played in the village of Shepherdswell for at least 98 years. Originally the team was called Shepherdswell FC and played from about 1908 until 1965. The name of the next major club in the village was the Whitehall Spartans, who played for most of the 1970s; they became responsible for the name of today's current team. In 1983–84, a team was formed again and named after their then sponsors A1 Taxis which entered the Dover District Sunday League. By the start of the next season their name had reverted to Shepherdswell Spartans as the main team in the village. They took the name Spartans from the local pub, The Whitehall Inn, which was their social base until the pub was shut down in 1989. Shepherdswell's cricket team is Shepherdswell C.C. The team plays "friendly" village fixtures from May to September each year against other Kent teams. Both the football and cricket teams play on Shepherdswell Recreation Ground.

References

External links

* http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63577 * http://www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Shepherdswell * http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/VisRec/S/SIB/Gallery.htm {{authority control Villages in Kent Dover District